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16 Jan 2012

Righthaven is a schmuck!

First you need to defend against often vindictive and fictitious claims, and then you have to sit through the claimant's bullshit being considered by a judge, who sometimes rules against you.

The process can drag on for years and destroy people's lives, families and businesses.

Frivolous litigation is the scourge of the United States, with some firms founded entirely on the destructive practice. Righthaven is one such lawsuit factory... run by a Steven Gibson, who's also a partner in law firm Dickson Wright, one of Detroit's largest and oldest firms.

Since its founding in January 2010, Righthaven has brought hundreds of copyright infringement lawsuits, even though it does not create, produce or distribute any content.

Instead, Righthaven claimed it was assigned the copyrights from Stephens Media, publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and other newspapers. In the course of its work fighting the Righthaven cases, EFF unearthed a document showing the copyright assignment was a sham, and that Righthaven never owned the copyrights it sued over.

Electronic Frontier Foundation is a great organisation that has been working tirelessly since 1990 to protect the public against bad legislation and schmucks like Righthaven.

Thanks to their efforts, Righthaven's assets are subject to confiscation by the US Marshals Service and their domain name, righthaven.com, has been sold this month at auction to an undisclosed purchaser to help pay its debts.

The death of Righthaven should stand as a warning to all copyright trolls, and hopefully reduce the huge amount of spurious lawsuits that ensures unscrupulous litigation lawyers are in the money.